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More paddleboat blues in Lafayette: Waneka Lake boats dry-docked for 2nd year

Drought conditions, low snowpack cited for decision to suspend water program

By John Aguilar Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
04/04/2013 07:26:37 PM MDT

Updated:
04/04/2013 07:27:43 PM MDT

Hui Huang fishes from the dock at the Waneka Lake boathouse in Lafayette on Thursday.
(
Mark Leffingwell
)

LAFAYETTE -- Put away the life jackets and boat shoes. For the second year in a row, Lafayette will shut down its popular paddleboat and canoe program on Waneka Lake due to low water levels and drought conditions.

Public Works Director Doug Short said there simply isn't enough water this year to commit 600 acre-feet to top off the lake and make it suitable for boating. There is seepage at the bottom of the lake, he said, with water slowly draining into old mine shafts, and evaporation at the surface.

"The seepage is excessive, and in times of shortage it's not prudent to put that water in that lake," he said Thursday. "That's equal to two months of winter use."

Before last year, the paddleboats and canoes had been available for nine consecutive years. They were last pulled out in 2002, the last major drought year Colorado experienced.

Earlier this week, the city put into place restrictions that prohibit any outdoor watering until April 16. After that date, outdoor watering is limited to between the hours of 6 p.m. and 10 a.m., and installation of lawn or turf grasses is prohibited. Hand watering of plants and trees is allowed.

Short told the City Council on Tuesday that depending on how snowpack numbers look over the next week or so, his department may recommend more severe restrictions on water use in the city.

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According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, snowpack statewide is 74 percent of normal for this time of year. Specifically, the snowpack in the Boulder Creek watershed is 69 percent of normal while the Big Thompson watershed is 59 percent of normal. Storage in the state's reservoirs is at 71 percent of normal, and at this time last year storage was at 108 percent, the service reports.

Louisville responded to the dry conditions with a mandatory two-day-a-week watering schedule for its residents. The restrictions go into effect May 1. Denver Water, Aurora Water and Colorado Springs have all implemented two-day-a-week outdoor watering schedules for their customers that began Monday.

Short said the Goodhue Ditch, which supplies Waneka Lake and is fed by South Boulder Creek, will likely not have adequate water this year because users with senior water rights on the creek, including Lafayette, will exercise them and use most of the water flowing downstream.

"The more senior water rights have the first call on the water," he said.

For Jasmine Mahannah, a new resident to Lafayette, the lack of paddleboats and canoes likely means fewer visits to Waneka Lake Park this summer.

"We would probably have come more frequently," she said Thursday, as her 9-year-old daughter took a turn on a slide at the playground near the boathouse where the five paddleboats and two canoes are stored. "It would have been nice to have something close."

Mahannah said she would get her boating fix at Boulder Reservoir.

Miranda Encina, of Broomfield, said she had wanted to use the paddleboats with her children, 5 and 7, last year but found out they had been dry-docked for the season. She said her kids will still get some enjoyment from the lake, just from the shoreline rather than the surface.

"The kids love to go out on the dock and look at the ducks," she said.

On Thursday, there was no need for a dock as the waterline barely reached the dock's edge and a huge expanse of lakebed on the west side of Waneka that is normally submerged lay bare and exposed.

Short said the only thing that might salvage the boating program at this point would be a massive spring snowstorm in the next few weeks -- one that dumps 2 to 3 feet on the Front Range and more in the mountains.

"How good a snow dance can you do between now and May 1?" Short asked.

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